Chapter 6
SIX
Sin’s POV
Bria slips through the front door just after midnight.
Quiet. Careful.
But not careful enough.
I’m sitting on the bottom step of the staircase in the dark, elbows on my knees, hands steepled in front of my face. I don’t say anything at first, I just listen to her move through the foyer like she thinks she’s got time to disappear upstairs.
“You’re late,” I say quietly.
She jumps. “God, Sin,” she mutters, hand clutching her chest. “What is it with you and sitting in the dark like some brooding vampire?”
I shrug, staring ahead. “You weren’t answering your phone.”
“I was busy.”
I finally look up at her.
She’s wearing a jacket I haven’t seen before, cream-colored, collar turned up like armor, and something underneath it that clings faintly to the air when she moves.
That’s when I smell it.
Vanilla.
But not just any vanilla.
Her vanilla.
Soft. Smoky. Warm.
Magnolia.
I freeze.
Bria notices immediately.
Her body tenses like she’s waiting for me to say something, waiting for me to make it worse. And I do.
I shift forward slightly on the stairs, worry creasing my brow. “You were with her.”
Bria doesn’t answer right away. She glances down, and then back up. “I’m not doing this with you tonight.”
“Too late.” I stand slowly. “You saw her.”
She walks past me toward the kitchen. “I didn’t plan to. It just happened.”
“And what, you two caught up over pasta and pretended our families aren’t trying to ruin each other?” I spit.
She spins around. “You’re one to talk.” I go still. “You stole her, and didn’t mean to fall in love during this war,” she says, voice low. “Don’t pretend I’m the traitor for still loving her after.”
My hands clench into fists at my sides. “You’re not a traitor.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” she mutters, opening the fridge. “Everyone else thinks I am.”
“I don’t care what they think.” My voice softens. “I care about you.”
She pauses. “I know.”
I walk to the other side of the kitchen island and lean on the counter.
“That jacket,” I murmur, nodding at her. “It smells like her. She wore the perfume the night of the masquerade ball.”
Bria leans back against the counter. “Why didn’t you tell me who she was?”
“How could I?” I ask, forcing a breath through my chest. “I wanted to make the Rusco’s suffer, and I know you hate them as much as I do, Bria. I started falling for her even though I didn’t want to. I wanted to tell you so many times, but I was scared of what you’d do.”
She laughs. Sharp, almost painful. “You think I’d kill her?”
“Yes.”
Bria lowers her gaze. “I couldn’t.”
“But when you first met her…” She nods, understanding. Before she knew the person Magnolia was, she very well could have destroyed her without a blink. The Rusco’s have destroyed everything that mattered to us. The mother who held us together like cement.
“Did she…” I run my hand over my face. “Say anything about me?”
She looks up slowly. There’s a flicker of something in her eyes. Guilt, maybe. Or sympathy. “Sin, you know you can’t be with her.”
Something cracks inside of me. “You think I don’t know that? It’s not safe for you to be around her either.”
Her voice falters. “You think I don’t know that? I’m trying to be careful. Besides, the Caputo’s are aware and running interference. Magnolia and I aren’t part of treaty lines.”
I stiffen. My family’s longest ally, Zeik’s family.
They’re a buffer for any negotiations between rival families.
“What if the Rusco’s go back on their word?
” I look at her like she’s still five years old and standing in my doorway with a scraped knee and a trembling lip.
“You’re my little sister, Bria,” I say. “I’m allowed to worry. ”
She reaches for a glass of water. The silence stretches out like a long thread between us. “She looked tired,” Bria finally says. “Confused.”
I close my eyes. “Is she happy?”
Bria glances at me again. “It seems like she is.”
I breathe out slowly. “Good.”
Her voice softens. “You can’t, Sin. You have to move on.”
“I can’t.”
She doesn’t argue.
I push off the counter and walk toward the back door. “I need air.”
Bria hesitates, then follows me up the narrow staircase to the rooftop, where the city opens up in glittering wounds beneath us.
We stand near the edge. Same place we used to sneak up to as kids when our parents were asleep. When the city was just lights, not weapons. When the war was something the men fought and not something buried in our skin.
Bria folds her arms across her chest. “I loved her too, you know. Still do.”
I look at her sideways.
She shrugs. “Not like that. But it doesn’t make it easier.”
My jaw ticks. “Then why do you get to be near her, and I don’t?”
Her voice stays steady. “Because I didn’t lie. I didn’t make her fall in love with someone who was hiding the worst truth imaginable.”
That one cuts deep. “I didn’t mean to lie,” I say. “I was just... trying to keep her.”
“She’s not something to keep, Sin.”
I know she’s right. But I hate it. I stare down at my hands. “You told me I can’t love her anymore.”
Bria nods. “You can’t.”
“Then why the hell do I still feel like she’s mine?” My voice is sharp. Bitter. “Why do I wake up thinking about her? Why does it kill me to picture her smiling at anyone else?”
Bria turns to me, quiet for a long moment. Then she says, “Because love doesn’t leave just because it’s inconvenient.”
Something in me twists. I glance at her. “So it’s easier for you? To still be her friend?”
“No,” she whispers. “It’s hell.”
That silence again. This time, we let it sit.
“I hate them, Bria,” I finally say. “The Rusco’s. Every last one of them. If it weren’t for her…”
She finishes it for me. “You would’ve burned them to the ground already.”
I nod. “She’s the only reason there’s still a line I haven’t crossed.”
Bria’s voice drops. “Then maybe it’s time we stop pretending that line even exists.”
I meet her gaze. The wind is cold, but her eyes are burning with regret to what she just implied.
Together, we say it.
“They’re the enemy.”
We don’t speak again. There’s nothing else to say.
Just two siblings standing in the middle of a war, loving the same girl from different sides of the line, and finally choosing the only truth left.
She didn’t destroy us.
They did.